Quick Update: Verizon Responds To Yesterday’s Blog Post.

Tom Maguire, Verizon’s point person for the Fire Island deployment, responds to my blog post here. At the end of the blog post, Maguire states that: “In addition, as part of our ongoing communications with the Federal Communications Commission, we have been working with the FCC for some time on filing the appropriate discontinuance filings and other notices for the affected services.”

Hopefully, Verizon will file sooner rather than later so that we can have the full and robust debate these important policy questions deserve. Remember, we are not just talking about Fire Island. We are talking about what rules apply anywhere a disaster destroys the copper infrastructure and the provider wants to replace it with something other than traditional copper phone service. For Verizon, that’s Voice Link. But the same rules apply if AT&T (or anyone else) wants to replace traditional TDM service with VOIP.

Tom and I were also (separately) interviewed by WAMC (the NPR affiliate in Albany) last week, you can find a transcript and audio here. Tom was responding there to my original blog post arguing that Verizon should replace copper with fiber rather than with an untested wireless technology. Amusingly, Maguire’s call (on cell, not Voice Link) dropped during the interview.

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